The latest work to spring from the idiosyncratic imagination of Greece’s Yorgos Lanthimos (director of the Oscar-nominated Dogtooth) is a satirical investigation of our human activity of “coupling” Is it an instinct? A social construct? Just something to do? The Lobster’s premise is another of Lanthimos’ inspired feats of brilliantly bizarre speculation: anyone who is found single in the near future is sent away to luxury prisons, which seem more like hotels with carefully planned daily social activities. The inmates have forty-five days to form a permanent bond with a mate, or else be permanently transformed into a member of the animal kingdom.

Among the recently incarcerated is David (Colin Farrell), whose post-divorce grace period has come to an end. His fellow inmates nervously search for signs of compatibility with others, based not on romantic love but, rather, upon shared flaws or affinities for each other’s disorders. As the days tick down without any viable mate in sight, David is forced to take some radical action.

Lanthimos’ English-language debut teems with an international dream cast. In addition to Farrell, there is Rachel Weisz, John C. Reilly, Ben Whiteshaw and Blue is the Warmest Color’s Lea Seydoux. While ridiculing our social foibles, Lanthimos simultaneously delivers a delirious love letter to human nature. – Jaie Laplante